Moving Parts

It couldn’t have been German, of course. It’s easiest to imagine that all the dialogues are conducted in the language of the narrator, not that of the characters. This is a method familiar from the movies; it enables the audience to understand a plot taking place in exotic countries, whose very existence is not entirely beyond doubt. Like it or not, then, the characters speak a language with flexible word order, in which anything can be said at least ten different ways, with different nuances of meaning. A language that suffers from an insufficiency of past and future tenses and a lack of rigor in their sequencing, something that permits the verbs a considerable degree of license and can lead to unexpected turns of events. This tongue, living happily under the aegis of Latin letters modified in makeshift fashion, has occupied a blank space on the map and has marked it with geographical names that everyone has heard of. Yet the fact that they are widely known does not alter the conviction that in essence Germany borders with Russia and Russia with Germany — and that on one side of the frontier there lies dirty snow, while on the other colorful butterflies flit about. That’s right, on both sides Polish is spoken. There is no other possibility. And in the Balkans? Polish too. And in the ports of the Far East. And in the remotest corners of Africa. Only Polish. Everywhere.

This still isn’t the end of this scene, which, as it happens, is of crucial importance, and which the narrator, finding no other way out, had to come upon one way or another. While he’s about it, he would gladly read the previously ignored name-plate by the gate, but he’s reluctant to cross the terrace while one of the characters remains at the table. It would be less awkward to find amid the floors and passages the right hallway leading to the empty house and the abandoned November garden. But why doesn’t F-meier call a cab and go where he is urgently needed and seriously late? Why has he still not found a babysitter for the child? The phone rings. A mouthful of orange juice from the bottom of a glass gurgles in his dry throat. Fmeier is choking. The phone gives a second ring. It was her glass. Another mouthful, this time from Mozhet’s glass — he, too, had left his juice unfinished. How can he now produce a voice from his throat? F-meier doesn’t know, nor does the narrator. The third ring sounds sharp and insistent. The cordless phone is lost somewhere among the newspapers. F-meier finally answers; from the entire chaos of the moment the appropriate words suddenly leap out and arrange themselves in the appropriate order. Yes, he is aware of that. With his free hand he rakes his yellowed smoker’s fingers through his hair. No, later isn’t possible either. He’s sick. Yes.

While he continues to sit at the garden table, his eyelids lowered, calamity begins to unfold. The word ‘yes,’ which ended the telephone conversation, can now take on various meanings, depending on the question that came from the other end of the line. These words could for example set in motion a huge mass of iron — a container ship due to be decommissioned that has just passed an inspection by a little-known company in one of the ports of the Far East. The matter might seem to be of marginal significance. The ship, sailing under a flag of convenience, had gone to sea with a cargo of crushed rock, according to plan but against the misgivings of its crew. The afternoon news services will bring word of a fire. At a certain moment, on every television screen the container ship will be seen in flames beneath a pall of black smoke, filmed from the air. The accident was supposedly caused by an electrical fault. The sailors — all Russian, aside from the captain — died of asphyxiation, and the shipping company was obliged to pay damages to the victims’ families. Their reputation in jeopardy, the company did not even attempt to evade responsibility. It seemed that there was no way to avoid incurring losses. No one could have predicted that in F-meier’s home the tension of dangerous emotions would grow, threatening destruction. Could husband and wife really have needed a spectacular accumulation of shocking events, some violent and furious disaster, to break free from the impasse in which they had been stuck, perhaps for many years? She had simply thrown him his cigarette lighter, and he had used it without hesitation at the first opportunity. Both longed for the moment when their comfortably furnished life would finally fall apart with a crash, like a sinking container ship.